Really wish you wouldn't as it's vital to my argument. Those criteria are the reason that naturalistic science has explanatory powers that the supernatural lacks and the reason why the scientific framework is in conflict with those who have supernatural beliefs.


I've said numerous times that I fully understand why those concepts are different, and given examples to show that, but that I think end result is the same. There is no 'practical' difference. ToE, for example, does not require god, it replaces god and relagates him to a first cause. That is a conflict.

Ok, so you clearly have some idea of what science is, or criteria that must be met, such that something could be "anti-scientific", it would be very useful to me if you could please define what you consider anti-scientific to be? If I can't get you to define sicence, then perhaps I can deduce your defition from what you think it's not.

Can you give a specific example, if you didn't already in answering the request above, of something that would be in conflict?

Let's assume the hypothetical John. John believes in a non-intervening non-personal God.

And while John is hypothetical, the belief is not. Deism might be small in numbers, but it is a fast growing beliefs in western countries.

Can you explain to us exactly how John's beliefs conflict with ToE? What is it in John's beliefs that makes it impossible for him to be a scientist? What scientific theories exist that contradict John's belief?

We're all aware that you've said things numerous times. That doesn't mean that what you have said is true. You obviously don't understand how these things are different.

What? You clearly don't understand ToE, either. Or any scientific theory, probably. There is no sense in which a scientific theory "replaces" God for anything from a scientific perspective. That's not how scientific theories are built. Scientific theories are built on observations of patterns. There is no "God" in the discussion to replace.

Science is not what you're trying to define science to be. Your concept of science is an arbitrary list of words that you sometimes capitalize randomly. It's also conflated with methodological naturalism in a way that no scientists actually accept. You think it's something that religious people can't do, despite the fact that there are lots of religious scientists that are doing it and the scientific community finds it fully acceptable.

So whatever you think it is, the evidence is showing that it isn't that. And there's no reason to think you're capable of deducing anything meaningful in this conversation.

It's clearly not 'impossible' for deists or theists to be scientists, there are many of both. However, they have to check their god beliefs at the door in order to do science, because science does not accept supernatural explanations. There is no god of the gaps in science. The gaps are left until there is a naturalistic explanation to fill them.

If you believe that god made all the living creatures exactly as they, as people used to, then you have a conflict, but when you talk about ToE, are you refering to an entirely godless ToE, a ToE that god initiated then left alone, or a 'guided' ToE? Guided ToE is imo not science because it explains nothing, you might as well posit pixies or unicorns.

Then there is no contradiction.

And psychologists check their physics beliefs at the door in order to do science, because "gravity" doesn't answer any questions in psychology. And lawyers check their house rules at the door when the enter the court room because "My house my rules" doesn't apply to the courtroom. That doesn't deny that these things are meaningful or useful in some sense. Just not for the specific realm of inquiry.

You're now conflating "God of the gaps" with "God." The extra words carry meaning.

The gaps will likely remain forever, as you've admitted that scientific inquiry is incomplete and insufficient to answer all questions. So what's the problem here?

You have now switched to making a specific criticism of a specific approach to the Theory of Evolution. You're making the specific-to-general fallacy. "I have a complaint about theistic evolution therefore there is an inherent conflict between science and religion." It doesn't work that way.

And you're welcome to posit that theistic evolution doesn't explain anything more about evolution than evolution claims on its own. But it's also true that atheistic evolution doesn't explain anything more about evolution than evolution claims on its own.

I'm referring to the theory of evolution, a vast scientific interdisciplinary framework for understanding how life develops over time through heritability, mutations and selection. The naturalistic argument is irrelevant here, as John is a deist and holds the typical deist position, the world can only be understood through nature.

Let's say John the deist believes in the primordial soup, that life began under certain optimal chemical conditions in the Earth's atmosphere when life formed from simple organic compounds.

Should John check that belief at the door when doing science? He can neither observe it nor falsify it.

If you can't be specific about which form of ToE you're using the question is pointless. But I want this to go somewhere so on the off chance that you're talking about the generally accepted version, then it created such a conflict that it almost entirely removed god from the equation and he was relegated to being a first cause. It doesn't get much more mutually exclusive then that and it happened because the theory doesn't use, need, or accept the supernatural at all.


No, because it's not a supernatural claim. At this point it's just a hypothesis.

And yes, if the correct conditions can be recreated, it could be observed, this has actually been tried. No resort to god, ghosts, mysterious supernatural ominpotent beings powering things from behind the scene... just good old chemistry,. biology and physics.

I agree with you that naturalistic science has explanatory powers that the supernatural lacks, so that isn't part of the dispute (unless you think I'm missing a relevant implication, in which please tell me). As for your criteria, they seem fine enough to me as desiderata in scientific theories, so assume I agree with you about the criteria and please explain to me why accepting these criteria as characteristic of the scientific frameworks creates a conflict for those who believe in god.

Let's take two claims about the nature of science:

1) Science makes a truth claim about god not existing.
2) Science ignores the existence or non-existence of god.

Your view is that there is no practical difference between these two claims. My claim is that there is a practical difference, most pertinently, that accepting (1) creates a conflict for theists (although not insuperable imo), while accepting (2) doesn't create a conflict for theists.

Theists are committed to the claim that god exists. Thus, if science claims that god doesn't exist, they have to say that science is wrong (at least in that case). That is a conflict. However, theists are not committed to the claim that science shouldn't ignore the existence or non-existence of god. In fact, many theists believe that science can't theorize about the existence of god and so think it is entirely apt for science to ignore the existence of god. Thus, this claim does not create a conflict for theists.

If accepting (1) creates a conflict for theists, but accepting (2) doesn't create a conflict for theists, then there is a practical difference between (1) and (2). Thus, your claim that there is no practical difference between these two is false.

An example of an anti-scientific claim is when people reject the scientific consensus on a topic on non-scientific grounds. For example, when fundamentalists reject natural selection because it conflicts with Genesis. As for a definition - I view "science" as a folk term and so don't think that a definition tells us much about the actual practice or reality of science.

Even though I'm a Bible-thumping wingnut , I agree with everything you said in your post, especially the bolded part. Science, in my opinion, can't be used to prove or disprove the existence of God. A scientist can make significant scientific discoveries and/or "build a better mouse trap" whether s/he believes in God or not. I'm grateful for advances in medicine, for example, that have been made in large part by professing atheists.

The answer was quite specific, so I'll just continue as if that question was already answered.

You spent 30+ posts in another thread continuously repeating to me why conjecture wasn't scientific, and now you accept a conjecture as scientific without a moment's pause. If your argument is that it "fits the evidence", then you're in an intellectual quagmire. String theory (which you rejected as non-scientific) also "fits the evidence", multiverse (which you similarly rejected) also "fits the evidence".

Not to mention that it's fairly easy to make "god" fit the evidence.

This isn't me being picky or unfair. You chose your criteria for "science", and I'm just pointing out that you're failing to follow them. On grounds that aren't very good.

No, the claim itself doesn't create a conflict for them, they just think it's incomplete, but the knowledge that results from that methodology, that seeks to explain our reality but without including the most important aspect, god, cannot be anything other than at best; explaining god's work but without explicitily mentioning him, replacing god with explanations that simply don't require him and either relegating him to a first cause or looking for explanations that rule him out completely.

The only way to reconcile the conflict between explanations that don't require god, and explanations that goddidit is to either replace the latter with the former (until god becomes simply a non-interventionist, first cause), or ignore the former, and there are theists who do that like the YECs. Throughout history, religious explanations have been replaced by scientific explanations until the only safe hiding place for god is 'he started it all'. But what will happen when science posits another explanation (and it has, Krauss is an exponent of the 'something from nothing' view).. there will be yet another conflict, because scientific explanations and religious explanations are mutually exclusive. Goddidit, and goddidn'tdoit are not compatible.

Science doesnt answer "whodidit", it doesnt attempt to answer "whodidit" and "whodidit" is irrelevant to the questions science asks.

Your point is....?

So there's no conflict. And you've already agreed that scientific knowledge is incomplete. So there's doubly not a conflict.

But somehow, you still think there's a conflict.

You attempted to show how science and religion are in conflict/incompatible because goddidit and goddidntdoit are in conflict/incompatible. But science says nothing about it, so your point is invalid

God made animals exactly as they are, god didn't make animals exactly as they are.

Tell me how they're not in conflict.

ooh! I think I'm first! I never get to be a first! A fresh, unspoiled Mightyboosh post all for MEEEEE. Ok, warming up here, let's go:

This line of argument only presents a conflict for the subset of believers who reject evolution. While I agree in cases where there is an explicit disagreement on truth claims, then science is in disagreement with religion. But that hasn't been the focus of the thread until this point, and this argument does nothing against a religious person who accepts evolution, big bang, etc.

Let's settle the groundwork first. You claimed there was no practical difference between:

1) Science makes a truth claim about god not existing.
2) Science ignores the existence or non-existence of god.

I argued that there was a practical difference between these two claims. Do you think my argument failed? If so, how? Or do you agree with me that there is a practical difference?

again, science makes no comment on whether or not god made the animals

It was for Neel in reply to his point. I know you're already past that point in the argument.

There's no practical difference in the knowledge that they produce. I don't know why you keep making this point, I get the difference, always have.

Sure there is. The knowledge produced if (1) is true conflicts with theism and the knowledge produced if (2) is true doesn't.

I keep making this point to combat your claim that there is a conflict between theism and science. I agree there is a conflict for some theological beliefs (eg YEC), but not for theism itself. My contention is that your claim that there is a conflict is because you aren't distinguishing between the practical effects of accepting (1) or (2). That is, you think that accepting (2) has the same practical effect as (1), which is to create a conflict for the theist. You say you see the conceptual difference, but think there is no practical difference. So I'm pointing out the practical difference.

I think the knowledge produced by both either directly conflicts with a theistic explanation (e.g. ToE when it was first developed), or relegates god to a behind the scenes, non-interventionist creator role, which in practical terms is almost equivalent to not existing at all. Neither are acceptable to the majority of theists, who believe that god intervenes to some extent or other on a regular basis and there have been a great many conflicts throughout history each time god was replaced by a naturalistic explanation.

For the theist, who believes that god is an all-powerfull, all-knowing, immortal creator being that is always present, explanations that replace him as the cause of things that happen, that relegate him to some vague, undefinable role where he might as well not exist and the explanation would still work, are problematic. The laws of physics, developed by naturalistic science, might have replaced god as the cause of storms, or floods, or the sun rising, but for the theist the question simply becomes 'but who created the laws of physics?', i.e who started it all. I think that 'final conflict' has already started as physicists like Krauss posit something from nothing that doesn't require god, unless of course, theists manage to regress still further to god being the cause of the nothing that the something came from...

The conflict is that naturalism is replacing god until eventually the only place a theist can retreat to is 'first cause' (because god is a unique situation, where no one can actually prove that he does or doesn't exist or has or doesn't have the powers he's claimed to have, so he can also be claimed), or they have to simply ignore what science says, as still regularly happens on more issues than just YEC. People who believe in the efficacy of prayer (the vast majority of theists) also ignore what science says about prayer when attempts have been made to measure any effect of prayer. Those attempts did not need to include a supernatural element, the effects were physical/empirical.

Well, it can actually do that - but it's conjenctural science and must use a combination of methodological reductionism and inductive logic to build its case. But abiogenesis, even though it has to rest on both empirical and non-empirical components, is certainly a field of scientific study.

Of course you might then simply argue that God made the processes of abiogenesis possible, there is no way to use reductionism to completely remove the god of the gaps, nor can it really do anything about the concept of non-intervening gods.

Still, it most certainly has to qualify as a comment.

Of course, if you hold that science must be strictly empirical and reproducible (a key ingredient for being falsifiable), then it can't really make any comment at all - because we can't know exactly what happened yesterday, let alone billion of years ago. So even if we could reproduce the primordial soup, we still couldn't conclude that it actually happened.

Precisely my point, that theists are constantly having to revise their understanding of our reality as naturalistic science explanations replace god explanatons, that's the conflict.

If I had a belief system in god that I thought explained reality, and a different, new belief system constantly undermined and replaced the individual beliefs in my system, I would be in conflict with that new system even if it ultimately couldn't disprove my fundamental belief, in the existence of god.